Challenge #500: Amnesty 50
May. 2nd, 2026 07:30 pmThis week's challenge is:
Amnesty 50
This is our fiftieth Amnesty challenge - every tenth challenge will be an Amnesty. Every tenth Amnesty will last two weeks!
What does this mean? Simply put, all previous challenges are now re-opened; write for any of them you want, and as many as you want.
Here's the list: New, Under the Influence, Wind, An Unreasonable Expectation, Pebbles, Heroic Failures, Whisper, Trouble In Mind, Halloween, Tough Choices, Relax, Fight or Flight, Seal, In The Doghouse, Decorations, Christmas Eve, Hope, Thank-You Notes, Cat, Peace Of Mind, Candlelight, Love Is In The Air, Alone, Just Friends, Mascot, Some Assembly Required, Arch, A Change In The Weather, Spring, Easter Eggs, Allergies, The Sky's The Limit, Birds, It Could Be Worse, Dabble, What Are You Complaining About Now?, Fruit, Sweet Summer Lovin', Twinkle, When The Sun Goes Down, Carnival, When There's Nobody Around, Holiday/Vacation, Growing Older But Not Up, Laughter, Free As The Wind, Awkward, If I Were You, Schedule, After All This Time, Nightfall, Love Is Blind, Travel, Fun And Games, Things That Go Bump In The Night, Jump, The Best Laid Plans..., Unbelievable, Long Way Back, Faith, How Did We Get Here?, Blue, Only Human, David Bowie Song Titles, Starstruck, Laying The Blame, Clear, Herbs And Spices, Waiting, There's Always Tomorrow, Anticipation, Mind Over Matter, Wonder, Do The Right Thing, Sneeze, One Of These Days, Early, Better Luck Next Time, Glass, Every Once In A While, Nervous, Old Enough To Know Better, Underwater, All Or Nothing, Hungry, Look Out, Space, A Chance Encounter, Nostalgia, In A Week Or Two, Coast, In The Moonlight, Shameless, Caught In The Act, Vain, Over The Hill, Torn, Nothing To See, Autumn / Fall, Imaginary Friends, Cold, Scene Of The Crime, Loud, Make Up Your Mind, Silver, What Are You Doing?, More, A Better Idea, Fireworks, Seeking Shelter, Numbers, Deep Down, Familiar, Just The Way You Are, Romance, Slip Of The Tongue, Tired, Right Or Wrong, Slinky, I've Got You, Elephant, Are You Ready?, Murder, On The Other Hand, Sleepy, A Long Time Ago, Memory, Where There's A Will, Fast, One More Day, Bake, End Of The Road, Gesture, Love Or Lust, Poke, Speak Of The Devil, Welcome, Not A Hero, Guilty, Late In The Day, Storm, Lie To Me, Dance, Thought I'd Seen Everything, Invisible, Friends And Neighbours, Spooky, In The Aftermath, Vibrate, Because You Love Me, Grey, Back To Front, Ride, Christmas Songs, Magic, Work Like A Dog, Exuberant, Long Lost Friend, Real, The State I'm In, Chemistry, You're The One, Hamper, Silence Is Golden, River, Good Advice, Warm, Out Of My Mind, Garden, Winding Down, Sound, Count On Me, Touch, Under These Conditions, Need, Hole In The Ground, Paradise, A Good Reason, Grope, Climbing The Walls, Visitor, Weather Warning, Believe, Having A Blast, Rash, The Last To Know, Park, Watch Your Step, Velvet, Dramatic Pause, Eyes, You Owe Me, Jelly / Jello, Trick Or Treat, Flirt, Push The Button, Tears, Nobody Gets Hurt, Freeze, Bad Habits, Needles, Making A Fresh Start, Weekend, In The Jungle, Shake, Cabin Fever, Darkness, Another Lonely Night, Speed, Just Getting Started, Restless, The Wrong Key, Precarious, Do Something!, Knot, Walking On Eggshells, Quiet, Try To Remember, Haywire, No Strings Attached, Jukebox, Far From Home, Whistle, Living It Up, Headache, Used To Be Mine, Last, Hot Summer Night, Yawn, Once In A While, Book, Too Many, Hide, Where Were You?, Pocket, Down The Road, Slide, Two Of A Kind, Genius, Dark And Stormy Night, Haunt/Haunted, Take It Off, Light, Good News, Ocean, The Holiday Season, Winter, Christmas Day, Celebration, In Another Life, Snuggle, Up To Something, Fine, In The Post, Birthday, Under The Weather, Catch, Kiss And Tell, Useful, Practice Makes Perfect, Apology, Kindness Of Strangers, Roll / Rolling, Soap And Water, Idiot, The Hard Way, Cling, Staying Home, Umbrella, Breaking The Rules, Key, Demons And Angels, Heatwave, Fun In The Sun, Someday, You Know Me, Plant, Into The Unknown, Fire, Out Of Sight, Squirrel, Nothing To Do, Alibi, Shattered Glass, Twist, Fright Night, Pumpkin, Dream Of You, Wood, Get Behind Me, Undone, Long Time Gone, Cosy, Warning Labels, Listen, Things Change, Explore, It's About Time, Order, Same Old Story, Chocolate, Wrapped Up In..., Kneel, In Too Deep, Run, Close Your Eyes, Homegrown, Take This With You, Ferret, Quality Time, Historic, Days Like This, Tail, Pass It On, Sweet, Love Who You Love, Parade, In The Shelter, Explode, Leave That Alone, Thunder, Take A Chance, Hand, Don't You Know?, Thread, Burning Bridges, Island, Come Monday, Survive, I Can Explain, Rain, Almost Home, Moon, Tell The Truth, Grind, That's Not Mine, Inspire, Nothing To Lose, Shopping, Have We Got Everything?, Feast, Turn It Up, Sleepless, I'm Alright, Massage, Driving Home, Wall / Walls, Taken By Surprise, Bone, Hard Times, Radio, Is It Just Me?, Buns, Under The Table, Detour, Because Of You, Swing, Here We Go Again, Change, Out Of Control, Single, On The Loose, Down, I'm Trying, Rock, Hold On, Revenge, Out Of Order, Worthless, Give Me Time, Leather, Use Your Imagination, Fancy, The Other Side, Overtime, I Can't Dance, Burn, Money Isn't Everything, Candy, Shame About That, Drop, Not That Different, Wild, See If I Care, Pretend, I Was There, Party, Travelling Light, Water, Someone Like You, Bright, Everyone's A Critic, Mud, The Walk Back, Admit, Up All Night, Mine, It's My Job, Quarrel, Long Way Down, Fantastic, No Big Deal, Gone, In The Dark, Ready, Up To You, Ripple, Over You, Liberty, Stay With Me, Flower, Tangled Up, Waltz, Going To Pot, Shuffle, Where Was I, Control, Have Mercy, Away, Painting The Town, Time, One Step Closer, Rough, I Know That, Lonely, Rocky Road, Hurt, On My Mind, Sunset, Lock And Key, Smoke, To The End, Glow, On The Road Again, Shiver, Here Comes Trouble, Accident, Feeling Blue, Stars, Childhood Hero, Damage, I Feel Lucky, Talk, A Stitch In Time, Rest, Letting Go, Mist, Ghost Town, Remember, Wake Up,
Reminder of Rules
Entries should be 100 or 200 words exactly, excluding titles and headers. Triple drabbles are now also allowed.
Please place the body of your entry behind a cut.
Tag with the appropriate Challenge, Fandom, Type, and Ratings tags. If a tag for your fandom doesn't exist, leave a request on the Tag Request post and I'll create the tags you need. You can request as many fandom tags as you want.
You don't need to use the challenge word or phrase in your drabble, though you can if you like.
Each challenge ends when the new challenge is posted.
Have fun!
Indie Bookstore Crawl 2026!
Apr. 26th, 2026 01:32 pmThe indie bookstores here organized a book crawl this year again, and I completed it! Last year my friend and I only found about it late, so we blitzed about twenty stores in two days (don't recommend this). This year, fantasy book club organized Saturday bookstore crawls so it was spread across 4 weekends, which worked out really nicely. People dropped in and out as schedules permitted - I missed one because I was sick - but it was really great. Most of the bookstores we took transit or walked, with one day being carpooled driving to hit the more outlying/hard to get to ones. I ended up going to 25 bookstores in total.
The bookstore crawls made me realize there are a lot more indie bookstores than I realized! Despite the much bemoaned deaths of Borders, Barnes and Noble, etc, many of the indie bookstores are doing well. Some of them are quite general, but some were small and tightly focused on e.g. feminist lit, Italian culture and lit, the cat cafe was mostly cat-related books, several bookstores plus gaming stores had nerdy/D&D/games novels. My favourite of the focused bookstores is the romance bookstore, which is always absolutely hopping on weekends. It's got a coffeeshop inside - another great pairing, there's always people there chatting, some dates I think too - and it's well laid out with romance subgenres on different shelves instead of all crammed together. I'm also impressed a fair amount of men are there, browsing. Woohoo! Romance keeps publishing going and is a lot of fun and joy.
I mostly kept a lid on it and didn't buy 1,492,765 trinkets and books, but it was tough. I did end up buying a locket necklace shaped like a book. Now I just have to think of something to put in the two frames...maybe if I paint something tiny...
Since I got all the stamps and then went back to some of the stores on Apr 25, Indie Bookstore Day, I got a lot of random prizes too. Lots of stickers - I love a sticker - a tote bag, an ARC, etc. Honestly I don't care that much about prizes but I LOVE to fill out all the stamps in a passport. This is why I try to be careful what challenges I embark on. But it was great to meet up with people in book club, and I also finally convinced the book club leader to start having in-person meetings again. We went Zoom during COVID and I've really missed being able to interact with book club people in person. Not to mention the issues with Zoom and monologuing, which is tough. So I am excited about the next meetings!
The bookstore crawls made me realize there are a lot more indie bookstores than I realized! Despite the much bemoaned deaths of Borders, Barnes and Noble, etc, many of the indie bookstores are doing well. Some of them are quite general, but some were small and tightly focused on e.g. feminist lit, Italian culture and lit, the cat cafe was mostly cat-related books, several bookstores plus gaming stores had nerdy/D&D/games novels. My favourite of the focused bookstores is the romance bookstore, which is always absolutely hopping on weekends. It's got a coffeeshop inside - another great pairing, there's always people there chatting, some dates I think too - and it's well laid out with romance subgenres on different shelves instead of all crammed together. I'm also impressed a fair amount of men are there, browsing. Woohoo! Romance keeps publishing going and is a lot of fun and joy.
I mostly kept a lid on it and didn't buy 1,492,765 trinkets and books, but it was tough. I did end up buying a locket necklace shaped like a book. Now I just have to think of something to put in the two frames...maybe if I paint something tiny...
Since I got all the stamps and then went back to some of the stores on Apr 25, Indie Bookstore Day, I got a lot of random prizes too. Lots of stickers - I love a sticker - a tote bag, an ARC, etc. Honestly I don't care that much about prizes but I LOVE to fill out all the stamps in a passport. This is why I try to be careful what challenges I embark on. But it was great to meet up with people in book club, and I also finally convinced the book club leader to start having in-person meetings again. We went Zoom during COVID and I've really missed being able to interact with book club people in person. Not to mention the issues with Zoom and monologuing, which is tough. So I am excited about the next meetings!
Menachos Daf 109
May. 1st, 2026 09:38 amI know I said I wasn't going to blog Menachos but holy shit Chonyo/Onias IV!!
Who was the son of High Priest Shimon HaTzadik and got into a succession fight with his brother that led to him fleeing to Alexandria and establishing a rival Beis Hamikdash there roughly halfway through the Second Temple period. The Rabbis of the Mishnah on Menachos Daf 109, some 300 years later, seem flummoxed by this, they can't seem to figure out if this was avodah zarah or not.
But what really flummoxed me is apparently "Beis Chonyo" stood, per Wikipedia, until ~73 CE when the Romans destroyed it, just a couple years after destroying the Beis Hamikdash. And I am so fascinated by the counterfactual of Yochanan Ben Zakkai instead of establishing Rabbinic Judaism in Yavneh, attempting to shift the focus of the avodah to the Bama of Beis Chonyo. Apparently Vespasian was worried enough about this possibility to preemptively raze Beis Chonyo, why don't we talk about this?
Who was the son of High Priest Shimon HaTzadik and got into a succession fight with his brother that led to him fleeing to Alexandria and establishing a rival Beis Hamikdash there roughly halfway through the Second Temple period. The Rabbis of the Mishnah on Menachos Daf 109, some 300 years later, seem flummoxed by this, they can't seem to figure out if this was avodah zarah or not.
But what really flummoxed me is apparently "Beis Chonyo" stood, per Wikipedia, until ~73 CE when the Romans destroyed it, just a couple years after destroying the Beis Hamikdash. And I am so fascinated by the counterfactual of Yochanan Ben Zakkai instead of establishing Rabbinic Judaism in Yavneh, attempting to shift the focus of the avodah to the Bama of Beis Chonyo. Apparently Vespasian was worried enough about this possibility to preemptively raze Beis Chonyo, why don't we talk about this?
the delightful feeling of having fixed an issue
May. 1st, 2026 12:09 pmWork-related. I'm the bridge between two groups and I found the issue and (hopefully gently) suggested a correction.
It worked.
HUZZAH.
Now I'm hungry, I need to get some food, and I'm going to be solo supporting the system this PM because supervisor is taking some time-off-in-lieu of hours already worked. (I kind of did this last weekend).
It worked.
HUZZAH.
Now I'm hungry, I need to get some food, and I'm going to be solo supporting the system this PM because supervisor is taking some time-off-in-lieu of hours already worked. (I kind of did this last weekend).
The Last Meme
Apr. 30th, 2026 07:44 pmGakked from
rmc28:
The Last...
Movie I watched: Project Hail Mary, in cinemas with a couple of friends. It was very enjoyable.
Series I finished: Honestly? Probably Bridgerton, back in 2024. I haven't watched any TV series since. Just can't concentrate enough to watch something through. I started Bridgerton S4 with the sistren on Monday night, we're going to work out way through the series, a couple of episodes at a time.
Book I finished: Undercover Attraction by Katee Robert. Part of the O'Malley sextet - a Boston crime family. Rather interestingly, the male MC of the second book in the series was quite clearly modelled off Charlie Hunnam in Sons of Anarchy.
Book I bought: Archangel's Sun by Nalini Singh - I'm buying the Guild Hunter series in hardcopy, after receiving the first six books as a gift about a decade ago.
Book I received as a gift: ...something about work. It's to do with work and faith and the intersection of them and was given to me by a friend to whom I sold a couple of quilts.
Food I ate: Trout fillets. Bought by B1 and fried to perfection for dinner.
Meal I cooked: Hainanese chicken rice, recipe by Nagi of RecipeTinEats. Really good!
Drink I had: Fermented limeade - home-made lime soda, which I left on the dining table for a few days too long and now it's slightly alcoholic.
Song I listened to: Trustfall by P!nk.
Album I listened to: Probably 'Anjunadeep16'. I love deepbeat dance-trance music for focusing on work.
Playlist I listened to: Belt It - my 'singing in the car' playlist. Turn the volume up, and belt it!
Concert I went to: The Music Of John Williams II with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra - a couple of months ago.
Game I played: Civ II. Was just playing it now when I decided I'd check DW.
Person I talked to: B1 - sister.
Person I texted: Sue - a friend who I arranged to pick up some gardening stuff with this evening.
The Last...
Movie I watched: Project Hail Mary, in cinemas with a couple of friends. It was very enjoyable.
Series I finished: Honestly? Probably Bridgerton, back in 2024. I haven't watched any TV series since. Just can't concentrate enough to watch something through. I started Bridgerton S4 with the sistren on Monday night, we're going to work out way through the series, a couple of episodes at a time.
Book I finished: Undercover Attraction by Katee Robert. Part of the O'Malley sextet - a Boston crime family. Rather interestingly, the male MC of the second book in the series was quite clearly modelled off Charlie Hunnam in Sons of Anarchy.
Book I bought: Archangel's Sun by Nalini Singh - I'm buying the Guild Hunter series in hardcopy, after receiving the first six books as a gift about a decade ago.
Book I received as a gift: ...something about work. It's to do with work and faith and the intersection of them and was given to me by a friend to whom I sold a couple of quilts.
Food I ate: Trout fillets. Bought by B1 and fried to perfection for dinner.
Meal I cooked: Hainanese chicken rice, recipe by Nagi of RecipeTinEats. Really good!
Drink I had: Fermented limeade - home-made lime soda, which I left on the dining table for a few days too long and now it's slightly alcoholic.
Song I listened to: Trustfall by P!nk.
Album I listened to: Probably 'Anjunadeep16'. I love deepbeat dance-trance music for focusing on work.
Playlist I listened to: Belt It - my 'singing in the car' playlist. Turn the volume up, and belt it!
Concert I went to: The Music Of John Williams II with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra - a couple of months ago.
Game I played: Civ II. Was just playing it now when I decided I'd check DW.
Person I talked to: B1 - sister.
Person I texted: Sue - a friend who I arranged to pick up some gardening stuff with this evening.
[#492 - Replace] Image of an Image (KNB)
Apr. 29th, 2026 09:53 pmTitle: The Image of an Image
Fandom: Kuroko no Basuke
Rating: Gen, Nijimura & Akashi
Notes: It was hard replacing me.
( Read more... )
Fandom: Kuroko no Basuke
Rating: Gen, Nijimura & Akashi
Notes: It was hard replacing me.
( Read more... )